Rightwing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos is dropping a lawsuit against his former publisher Simon & Schuster, after attempting to sue the firm for cancelling his memoir Dangerous.
In papers filed on 20 February in New York state supreme court, Yiannopoulos and the publishing house asked that the case be dismissed “without costs or fees to either party”.
Yiannopoulos is a former senior editor at Breitbart News who rose to prominence for his offensive remarks about feminism, Islam and homosexuality. He was also banned from Twitter following a public spat with Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos sued Simon & Schuster for $10m (£7.1m) after it cancelled the release of Dangerous in February 2017. Having reportedly secured the book for an advance of $255,000 (£200,000), the publisher cancelled the deal after a recording emerged that appeared to show Yiannopoulos endorsing sex between “younger boys” and older men. Yiannopoulos went on to self-publish the book, later labelling reports of low sales “fake news”.
In July, he alleged breach of contract and said the publisher gave in to “false and misleading reports”. Simon & Schuster responded by calling the suit a publicity stunt and asked for it to be dismissed, but a judge allowed the case to proceed.
As part of the case, Simon & Schuster submitted a number of embarrassing documents revealing problems it had with Dangerous. Among other criticisms, the publisher’s notes said Yiannopoulos needed a “stronger argument against feminism than saying that they are ugly and sexless and have cats” and that another chapter needed “a better central thesis than the notion that gay people should go back in the closet”.
In January this year, Yiannopoulos’s legal counsel withdrew and the author announced that he would represent himself, in order to gain access to Simon & Schuster’s financial documents that were marked “attorneys eyes only” by the court.
In early February, the judge, Barry Ostrager, told Yiannopoulos this would not be possible, as he had not submitted the necessary paperwork for his proposal to be considered by the court. “Those documents, frankly, have nothing whatsoever to do with the substantive merits of your case,” he said.
“We are pleased that Mr Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit has been withdrawn,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement on Tuesday. “We stand by our decision to terminate the publication of Mr Yiannopoulos’ book.”
Writing on Facebook on Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said ending the suit was a “tough decision” but the “right one”. He wrote that “it was always going to be hard to prove damages, as anyone who has ever hired a ’damages expert’ will know.”
“I don’t want to spend all the money I made from my book, and the next two years of my life, on a lawsuit,” he added.
